An evolving group of Australian Artists working collaboratively in our travelling art journals.
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Friday, July 14, 2017

Jo's Fairy Tale Journal

AKA better late than never!

I chose the theme of Fairy Tales for my Journal as it's not only a theme I personally like but I thought it provided a wide range of interpretations for the participants to explore. I used 190gsm watercolour A4 landscape sheets and tied them simply so that the pages can be removed and worked on without having to worry about accidentally marking another page. The pages are nice and sturdy and should be able to withstand even the thickest mixed media works of magnificence.

My journals usually take months and months to complete as I start pages and come back to them over and over again over time to add layers and enhancements, so my Journal is pretty basic at this stage. It will certainly be a challenge to have to complete a page fully in a limited time period, but it's a challenge I welcome.

I wanted the cover of the Journal to look similar to an old story book, again it's pretty simple as it will most likely be replaced with a different hard cover when it's returned to me. It was a simple spray and blot of Lindy's Stamp Gang brown and turquoise sprays for the background with bronze metallic painted die cut page corners, black gesso painted fairy gifted die cut and a Fairy Tale title die cut that I made from my silhouette machine. It's a bit messy but I quite like it that way. I'm not big on perfection, I much prefer to enjoy the process.

Inside my front cover was again a simple listing of participants, the signed contract and a brief explanation of the Journal (basically telling you to have fun). Again it's extremely simple as the whole front page will probably be replaced and this part moved and embellished much more over time.

The only page I was able to complete was a tribute to my favourite Fairy Tale of all time, Snow White. It also was a shout out to the very misunderstood villains of these tales, whose back stories are wonderful. Again, I used a combination of paints and sprays to create a vivid green background and painted a large layered die cut apple this same colour initially. I then added red paint to the apple and used a baby wipe to blend the two to create the apple colour. On the bite mark of the apple I used a mixture of white, gold and green glitter to show the evil magic inside the innocent looking apple. I added a quote from the Wicked Witch and lightly went around the words with Faber Castell Big Brush Markers for some shadowing.

Finally, the back cover is of my favourite little naughty Fairy, Tinkerbell. Once again, it was a mix of beautiful shimmery Lindys Stamp Gang sprays and painted die cut.